This trip would not have been possible without the generosity of Michele’s extended family starting with Martina and Christian Stabenow and their family who hosted the cousins’ get together in Schifferstadt, Germany. After the Re-U – to blatantly rip off Neal Stephenson’s term for a family reunion – Michele and I went to Strasburg for a couple of days and then we spent a night with Martina and Christian’s daughter, Uli, and her husband Timmy. Then it was back to Martina and Christian’s for two nights when we came back to Germany to see the qualifying for the German Grand Prix. Staying with a German family, even for a few days was great fun and gave us access into German private life that we wouldn’t have otherwise had. 

Both of the places we stayed were in small villages and one of the biggest surprises – to me – was that the villages were dense and discrete, at the edge of the village, the farming country started, Bam! just like that, unlike here where small towns seem to fade into the surrounding countryside. When we went for a walk, we were in the village and then in the country. It is very human-friendly. As an aside, I think the Europeans are much more serious about protecting their environment than we are. They had way more solar panels on roofs than we do and France had windmills everywhere.  End aside.

And, now, a couple of non sequiturs: the German toilets have the water tank in the wall (which, as a builder, I found very interesting and kinda confounding) and the cousins use different kitchen appliances than we do. Martina had a meat slicer like I’ve only seen in a deli here, that made thin slices (to be politically correct, I should probably say that it was Christian’s also, but the slicer did seem to be Martina’s). Uli had a Thermomix gizmo that, according to their website, combines twelve appliances into one with functions that include weighing, mixing, chopping, milling, kneading, blending, steaming, cooking, whisking, precise heating, stirring and emulsifying.  

In France, we stayed with Cousin Marion who showed us a corner of France we probably never would have seen otherwise and, I have to say, it is a corner I loved. Visiting Marion was fascinating, she was born in England but has worked most of her life as a photo-journalist in – among other places – South Africa, Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen, Portugal and, now, France. She photographed Jerry Brown and Linda Ronstadt in Kenya and spent five months on one of the last working Arab dhows as it sailed around the Middle East (and she wrote a super book about the adventure). Marion took us to Auch to see the unusual Cathedral – unusual,but not bad unusual, it is a Gothic Cathedral with a Renaissance front – and treated us to one of our best meals on the trip, lunch at a small hotel nearby. 

To finish our trip, we ditched the rental car and stayed at Cousin Claude’s home, in Paris (while she, as a proper Parisian, spent the summer out of town). It was an extraordinarily generous offer, a great opportunity, and a spectacular way to end our trip.